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My
Little Pony: The Movie comes at an interesting time in the franchise. When Lauren Faust was tasked with
brining the 80s toy franchise to the fledgling The
Hub network, neither she nor the people involved realized the phenomenon
they were creating. My
Little Pony: Friendship is Magicwas not only a hit with both boys and
girls, but it found an unexpected fanbase amongst adult men, now known as Bronies.

Friendship
is Magic followed magic student Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong) and her pet
dragon, Spike (Cathy Weseluck), as they were sent to the small town of
Ponyville in Equestria by her mentor, Princess Celestia (Nicole Oliver). There, she
was tasked to learn about friendship and did so by becoming friends with
fashionista Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain), apple farmer Applejack (Ashleigh
Ball), extreme flyer Rainbow Dash (also Ball), high-energy party planner Pinkie
Pie (Andrea Libman), and animal lover Fluttershy (also Libman). Their
friendship was the key to saving Equestria numerous times, eventually leading
to Twilight becoming a princess herself. The show is in the middle of its
seventh season, and some of the bloom has fallen off the rose as is expected
with an aging franchise. Friendship is
still popular, but not as much as it once was.

You know it's big budget because there's shading and light effects.

The
Movie was announced back in 2014 and became the second feature to be
produced through Hasbro’s AllSpark
Pictures (after the abysmal Jem and the Holograms)
alongside DHX Media, with Lionsgate releasing. Series director
Jayson Thiessen left the show to focus on directing the film, and showrunner
Meghan McCarthy wrote the screenplay with Rita Hsiao and Michael Vogel. The
forces of the Storm King (Liev Schreiber) invade Canterlot during Twilight’s
first Friendship Festival, sending the Mane 6 and Spike to new parts of
Equestria to find help and rescue Princesses Celestia, Luna (St. Germain) and
Cadence (Britt McKillip) from
capture. Series composer Daniel
Ingram also provided the music. Although other Friendship-related productions have seen theatrical releases before
airing on TV, this is the first to be made exclusively for theaters.

An image depicting a new undersea kingdom.

The production took great pains to
ensure that the movie wasn’t just viewed as an extended episode of the show
(something that sunk the box office of many other show-to-film efforts,
particularly from DiC
Entertainment). As such, the movie features slightly tweaked character and
set models to add a sense of roundness and weight. At times, they almost
resemble a cross between the models from the show and the artwork of Jay Fogsit, one of the contributing
artists to IDW Publications’
ongoing My Little Pony comics. For
longtime fans of the show, this adjustment could be a bit jarring, but as the
movie goes on you become more accustomed to the new look. That’s helped by the
overall familiarity of the production which left it feeling close enough to the
show, from everything that transpired on screen to the opening notes of Ingram’s
enjoyable score. And there’s plenty of eye candy as many residents and visitors
to Ponyville make cameos throughout the opening sequence.

The Storm King and Tempest.

The movie continues the ongoing
themes of season seven of introducing new locations and characters.
Unfortunately, this is where it stumbles a bit. Not much screen time is given to
these new characters to adequately develop them or their relationships. The
most developed is Tempest (Emily Blunt), who receives a flashback to explain
her lack of a horn and why she’s helping Storm King conquer the ponies. The
Storm King himself, however, only appears twice and is far less imposing a
threat than any that have come before him on the show.

New friends, including a con artist, pirates and an undersea pony.

The ponies’ quest has them encountering
and befriending a variety of new species and characters, but these friendships
all form awfully fast and get no time to develop organically. We get a brief
glimpse into their world and a little backstory through exposition, but not
much else. Even the instances of allegiance changing can’t be explained
adequately beyond “because the script said so”. Perhaps there were just too
many to juggle in the movie’s short running time, or maybe they dedicated too
much time to ensure there was a song number in every new scene. These
characters do get a bit of fleshing out, but that’s only assuming you’ve read
the IDW prequel comics. Some of that material would have been beneficial here.

Celebrity cameo: Sia as Songbird Serenade.

Overall, the movie felt like an
extension of the show, which was thanks to a lot of the same people working
behind and “in front” of the camera. Fans of Friendship is Magic will enjoy the movie on that basis alone. There
were also quite a few jokes and sight gags that will get a laugh (oh that
Pinkie Pie…). The story was fine, even though it wasn’t anything remarkably new
or wildly different, and the music was varied and fun. The new characters were
really shortchanged in the long run. They served little purpose beyond
advancing the Mane 6 to the next part of their journey and weren’t thoroughly
developed. Friendship is Magic has
done many instances of friendship building and credible threats to Equestria
that far surpass what was presented in the movie. These things just weren’t
given enough time to gestate on screen so that they’d feel real.

RATING: 3
out of 5 hooves. A nice, if flawed, addition to the My Little Pony canon. Fans of the show and kids will most likely
like it, although newcomers and general audiences may fail to find what made
the show so magical in the first place.